Game | Games and Activities for Teaching Vocabulary to ESL kids

These are games and activities for teaching vocabulary to ESL kids.

1. Apple Pass
Have all students sit in a circle. Use a fake apple and toss it to one student, but you must say one English word as you toss it. The student then throws to another student and says a different English word. If the student you threw it to drops it, he/she is out. The game keeps going until you have one winner.

It can be played with different categories, such as Food, Animals, etc. My students love it! (Submitted by Kim.S.)

2. Art Gallery
This is a great activity for reviewing vocab. Draw enough squares on the board for each student to be able to draw in. Have the students write their names above their squares. Teacher calls out a word and the students draw it – the vocabulary could be

- Simple nouns (e.g. draw a dog, a bookcase, a train)
- Verb structures (e.g. draw a man running, eating cake, sleeping)
- Adjectives (e.g. draw a big elephant, an angry lion, an expensive diamond ring)
- Adverbs (e.g. draw a cheetah running fast, a girl jumping high, a man sneezing loudly) etc.

For each student give a score for his/her picture, and then move on to the next picture. The student with the highest score at the end is the winner.

3. Backs to the Board Game
This one is good for higher level kids. Make two teams and stand one student from each team in front of the board, facing away from it.

Write a word or draw a picture on the board (e.g. “hamburger”) and the students have to explain that word to their team member (e.g. you can buy it in McDonalds, it’s got cheese and ketchup in it).

The first student out of the two standing in front of the board to guess the word wins a point for his/her team.

4. Badminton
This game is good for reviewing target vocabulary (words or communicative expressions). Set a “court” in the classroom by placing a skip-rope tied up to two chairs.

Make two small teams (the other students can be the crowd and or challengers). Give each student a flyswatter (“Racket”). Inflate a balloon (this will be the ball). Remember: the younger the students, the bigger the balloon must be (slower).

Decide who serves and for every winning shot the team to call out the flashcard or picture card shown by the teacher to get a point. Lots of fun! (Note: For very active students, be careful since they might hit the others’ faces when playing). (Submitted by Salvador Domingo)

5. Banana Race
Children just love this! It is basically a quiz game in which you ask children questions (target vocabulary) like: “What’s this?”, “What fruit is red and round?”, “How many chairs are there in the classroom?” or the teacher simply draws items on the board, makes animal noises so that they guess.

You can work with individual students or split the class into small groups/teams if you have a large class. The teacher draws on the board a race track and each team or student will be a banana waiting at the starting line. They will approach the goal line as they answer each question. Each right answer equals a step towards the goal line. The banana who arrives there first, wins! (Submitted by Salvador Domingo)

For further information, please visit ESL KidStuff website.